Bunny Chow

So another group of South African expatriates has tried their luck in challenging Madiba for SA restaurant supremacy in New York. And based on the meal that N and I had last night, it's easily the best of the lot; N felt that their food is tastiest and more authentic. The space is long and narrow, with a small bar up front and a wider, bi-level seating area in the back. There's a fireplace that could have been put to good use last night, but I'm not sure if it works. The decor is much less cluttered and quirky than either Madiba or Braai.

The menu is small for now, and they have an extensive SA wine list and several interesting-sounding cocktails. (I believe that they're also offering brunch, as well as live music later at night.) We started with a salad of shaved biltong, greens, a kind of slaw, and a few pineapple and peach slices. Biltong is SA beef jerky, which is not easy to find here, and the version Bunny Chow is serving is semi-dry and spicy. They give you a lot of biltong vs. the other ingredients. I then had the seafood biryani and N had the peri-peri prawns. The biryani contains mussels, shrimp, and squid; the rice has lentils mixed in. The whole lot has a big dollop of chutney on top, which is good because the rice was spicier than I expected. Very flavorful and very filling. N's prawns had the heads attached, enabling her to suck out the roe. Also, very well seasoned, and the saffron rice absorbed the peri-peri sauce well. We had planned to have a Doughnut Plant donut at home as our dessert, but N wanted to try the milk tart. It's a very small tart filled with a light custard, with drizzles of cinnamon-laced condensed milk around it.

I haven't seen much publicity around the restaurant so far, other than a VV column Sarah DiGregorio wrote this week about the namesake dish (curry in a hollowed-out loaf of bread--no bunnies involved). It was fairly empty last night, though that could have been due to the weather (Cafe Katja, across the street, looked fairly dead even at 7:30). But the food is very good and the prices are reasonable, so it's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

Bunny Chow74 Orchard Street (between Broome and Grand)

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." --John Steinbeck

If the chef isn't present, which is often the case at a certain kind of restaurant, it makes no difference whether he's in Bangkok or stuck in the subway. The issue is whether he has the skills to control the consistency at a place like J-G.. -- Robert Schoenfeld, 31 May 2005 - 08:05 AM